Fred, unless we are going to "apologize" for treating the Indians in the US unfairly, I don't see why the "powers" should apologize for the UN 1947 decision. The UN saw a land divided between two people, at each other throat, offered a partition, which was quite fair to the Arab (leaving the future Israel as a "cantonized" multi district entity within a sea of Arab contiguous state). Despite the fact that the future Israeli thought that this was an "unfair" partition (and much less than what was promised by the Balfour declaration), they accepted it. All the neighboring Arab nations did not, and certain of their future victory, assailed the nascent state. The rest is history, about 750,000 Arab refugees were created, and the same amount of about 750.000 Arab Jewish refugees were expelled from all the Arab crescent.The Israeli state settled its refugees problems, the Arab on the other hand, mercilessly exploited the problem for political reasons, creating a tragedy still growing 50 years later. Who do you think should apologize?
Now you may ask, why was the Balfour declaration so important? Because it was part and parcel of what created other "artificial states" in the region, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan (governed by a Prince from the area near Mecca and Medina, and whose family, the Hashemites still covet). Thus if an apology should be forthcoming, it should be to the Ottoman empire that was discombabulated after WWI. Are you sure you want to go there?
Zeev
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